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[clairsentientwendigo-blog]

Eliezer Wiesel, better known as Elie, was a Jewish author, human rights activist, and Holocaust survivor. Born on September 30, 1928, Elie was only fifteen when he, his parents, Shlomo and Sarah, and his three sisters, Hilda, Bea, and Tzipora were transported in a cattle car, filled with a total of 80 people, from their home in Sighet, Romania to Auschwitz in May, 1944. Upon arrival, Elie and his father were separated from his mother and sisters and taken before the Angel of Death himself, Dr. Josef Mengele, where they passed his inspection and entered the camp. After the war, Elie learned that his mother and little sister, Tzipora, who was only seven years old, had been taken to the gas chambers immediately after arrival.

In January, 1945, after approximately eight months in Auschwitz III, where Elie and Shlomo endured starvation, beatings, and unimaginable terror, they, along with the rest of the prisoners in their sub-camp who were able, were forced on a death march through the blistering cold snow. As the front drew nearer, the SS decided to move the prisoners to a camp in central Germany called Buchenwald, where Shlomo would perish shortly after arrival.

Elie stayed in Buchenwald until it’s liberation on April 11, 1945 and he was later reunited with Hilda and Bea, who had also survived. In 1956 he wrote an autobiography entitled "Night", that has been hailed as one of the most powerful and influential Holocaust books ever written, in which he candidly shares his horrifying experience as a victim of The Holocaust. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He passed away at his home in New York on July 2, 2016.